


know that i'm yours to keep

by veterization



Category: Monkey Island
Genre: F/M, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 05:51:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9370916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veterization/pseuds/veterization
Summary: Set during Lair of the Leviathan. What could've happened down in the manatee.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I'm EXTREMELY LATE to the Tales of Monkey Island party, but after recently learning about its existence and playing it multiple times, it has officially dethroned MI3 as my favorite Monkey Island game. And yes, the crazy amount of amazing chemistry between Morgan and Guybrush is partway responsible for that (the game is also incredible holy shit). The two of them have completely taken over my brain and refused to let me do anything but a) wish for an (unlikely) MI6 with an infinite amount of Morgan in it and b) write them. I debated a long time over whether I should write them in chapter three or in chapter five, and even though I chose the former, there's a very good chance that I'll be back at one point to write a story set during chapter five too.
> 
> Title is from City and Colour's song "The Girl," one of the many tracks on my [Morgan/Guybrush 8tracks playlist because I cannot help myself](http://8tracks.com/veterization/late-for-the-love-of-my-life-morgan-guybrush).

For all the crazy, tell-to-your-great-grandchildren things Guybrush has lived through, ending up inside the belly of a lost manatee is definitely up there. High up there.

It'd be a lot funnier if Guybrush actually had a foolproof plan for getting out of the situation.

As it stands, the best he has is a gravely poxed first mate, a frenemy here to assassinate him, three unhelpful doofuses down in "paradise" in the manatee’s stomach—extremely high doubt regarding the usage of the word paradise—the voodoo lady's crazed ex lover, and all his hope resting on a whole lot of throat grubs. That, or a half-baked scheme of snatching the real cochlea out from underneath the Brotherhood, which would be a lot more fully-baked if _any_ one of those aforementioned doofuses showed any sign of cooperating.

He spends the day—or night, or afternoon, or morning, who knows, this animal doesn't exactly have clocks built into it—acquainting himself with the veterans of the manatee and then strolling around tucking grubs into his pocket after he pisses Morgan off and can't stand the sight of Moose chugging ichor anymore. It's not the best day of his life, that's for sure.

"I found another one," Guybrush says, pulling the grub out of his pocket and dropping it onto the table where De Cava is already dissecting a previously scavenged grub. There's what seems to be grub intestines all over the table which, if Guybrush stares at it any longer, will push up all that ichor Moose insisted he try straight out of his threat. Yuck.

"Excellent! Only 99,994 left!"

"Great," Guybrush says dryly. "Anything else I can do for you other than running after throat larvae?"

"You can look after your wife," De Cava says. "For a honeymooner, she did not seem too swept up by romance."

"Yeah. Being stuck in a giant manatee might have something to do with that."

De Cava narrows his eyes at him. Guybrush isn't sure if it's out of suspicion or derision—probably both—but either way, being on the end of that particular look isn't exactly giving him the warm and fuzzies, so...

"I'll just go check on her," he says, pointing his hook over his shoulder. He's not sure why he's surprised here, not when De Cava is the kind of person who thinks going on decade-long adventures to look for a giant sponge-shaped declaration of love is the normal thing to do in a casual relationship. For all he knows, De Cava thinks Guybrush is the weird one here for not bothering to unearth legendary buried treasure for his wife yet.

"She went to your ship," De Cava tells him. "She's a saucy little pirate minx, that wife of yours."

"Tell me about it," Guybrush says, doing his best not to grumble.

"You said you met through work?"

"Uh. Yes." The work of dehanding him, but yeah, work nonetheless. "It was, um. Love at first sight."

"Really?" De Cava asks. The rolling of his Rs seems to get even thicker; Guybrush has a theory that it has to do with his fluctuating level of sanity. "She doesn't seem quite so loved up right now."

"We had a... small disagreement," Guybrush says. Something about Guybrush not wanting to slaughter innocent—stupid, but still innocent—people who're blatantly hiding their chance at escape and wanting to do this the Nice Pirate way, and then something about Morgan loudly disagreeing with that idea. "She'll blow over."

"Go talk to her," De Cava says. "Back when I was with my beloved, we had our fair share of little squabbles."

"With your smooth temperament? I can't imagine."

"But we never went to bed angry." A crooked, nostalgic, disturbingly sexual smile bends its way up De Cava's mouth. "We also never went to bed without first—"

"La la la la, I'm going now," Guybrush says, backing away and tying to think of something, anything, aside from the Voodoo Lady, De Cava, and a bed. The Narwhal's mast. Sexually-ambiguous merfolk. Van Winslow.

Manatee, Day One. Things aren’t looking peachy.

\--

So Guybrush goes to look for Morgan, mostly just to escape De Cava’s personal stories about him and the Voodoo Lady’s passionate past. He checks the mast, just in case Morgan's there to see the fabulous view that is the ear canal, and then the deck of the ship, and then finally the quarters, where across hall from where Winslow sounds as if he has a tree trunk lodged in his throat, a door is ajar. Guybrush tips it open and finds Morgan inside the room he had intended to claim as his own, boots creaking on the ship’s old floorboards. He also has the distinct feeling that if were to bring that up, he'd be dismissed with a swift you-snooze-you-lose and a goodbye wave.

"Hey, Mrs. Threepwood," Guybrush says, stepping inside. "Uh, thanks for what you did out there."

"You can make it up to me," Morgan offers.

"Yeah?" He grimaces. "Why do I feel like I'm not gonna like this?"

"You could let me cut my way out of this manatee and bring you back to Flotsam Island."

"Yup, there's the part I knew I wouldn't like." He watches her get settled on a bed, wondering if it's still necessary to invite her to use the Narwhal's quarters when she's already helped herself. "So since we have plenty of room here, go ahead and grab a bunk."

"I already did."

"Yeah. I was kind of hoping to subtly point out to you that you could've, you know. _Asked_."

"Some people ask for what they want. Doers just go ahead and take what they want."

"You might want to consider that for business cards," Guybrush suggests. "Yeah, so I'm just gonna—go find my own bed."

He must look as tired as he feels, because Morgan's looking at him like he's already decomposing right in front of her. His ponytail hurts and his clothes have that special stickiness that comes with traveling down a manatee's throat and he hasn't slept since he was knocked unconscious from the force of the explosion on Elaine's ship, and all he really wants is to sleep for a few hours before he goes back to dealing with all the other inhabitants of this manatee.

"Rough day?" Morgan asks.

Kind of a loaded question, considering it started with merfolk, was harpooned halfway through by pox-insane pirates, segued into being eaten alive by a manatee, and is now—here. Sitting inside a giant sea creature's belly listening to Winslow cough his lungs out a room away. But okay.

Guybrush runs a hand over his forehead. "Rough _life_ if we end up stuck in this manatee forever."

"You know that all those guys down there are hiding the cochlea, right?"

"Gee, that thought never would've occurred to me," Guybrush says, and his sarcasm is dripping over the place enough for Morgan to roll her eyes. "Thanks for the hot tip." He moves his hand down to his left temple, massaging it. Something in the air down here is making his head throb. Probably stomach acid? "They aren't giving me anything to work with. We're gonna be stuck in this damn manatee until we die."

"Would that be so bad?"

The ichor alone makes it very, very bad. "Uh, yeah?"

"Come on. At least we're safe from the pox in here. Everything up there is a complete mess," Morgan says.

"If you hadn't noticed, I'm already infected. As is Winslow." As if on cue, Winslow hacks up another few organs (from the sound of it) from the other side of the wall. "And if he keeps going at the rate he is, he's going to eat us all alive."

Morgan's lips quirk upwards. "You've dealt with cannibals before, haven't you?"

"Yeah, and once was enough." Guybrush's brow furrows inward when he realizes something. "How do you know all this stuff about me anyway?"

"I'm a fan. Thought you figured that out by now."

"It's hard to be convinced when half the time you're around, you're trying to kill me."

"Haven't in a while though, have I?"

"No," Guybrush admits. Having that pointed out to him makes him a little queasy. "Does that mean we're overdue for an attempt?"

"I've been _helping_ , you know. Wouldn't hurt you to thank me once in a while." Her mouth twists. "Heck, only reason I'm even in here is to keep De Cava from getting suspicious."

"Suspicious of what?"

"Of us," Morgan says. "After you left to look for throat grubs, the crazy coot cornered me and told me to remember to be a good wife for his newest crewman." She rolls her eyes again; Guybrush is pretty sure that if she does that any more, her face will stick that way. "I could've glocked him, but instead I held back. _For you_."

"Wait a minute. I'm supposedly in debt to you now all because you didn't beat up De Cava?"

"Yeah."

"Then what's the debt ratio of that to, say, I don't know, cutting off somebody's hand?"

"Are you ever gonna let that go?"

"I don't know what the acceptable mourning period for one of your appendages is, but I'm pretty sure I still get be upset for a little bit."

He looks at her, and for a second, it seems like she might actually be considering an apology, but that look on her face is most likely just a trick of the light. Things are dark in this manatee. It’s hard to tell.

"Look," he says. "Mind if I sleep for the next, I don’t know. Three weeks?" He rubs over his eyes with his thumbs, pretty sure that if he stays awake much longer, he’ll be seeing the world through kaleidoscope-vision. "I’d also like to wake up with the rest of my limbs still in place, if that’s a possibility, Mo."

"Okay," Morgan says. "But get your own room."

He has to admire her ruthlessness, if nothing else. She’ll definitely never be the type to tell him what he wants to hear, and he supposes that’s worth something.

\--

He misses Elaine, but it doesn't take long for him to realize the feeling is more of a worrying-about-if-she's-surviving-LeChuck's-clutches thing than a wish-you-were-here type of ache. The last thing he actually needs in this manatee is _another_ pox-infected pirate blowing up on him at random, unexpected times.

He tries to think of her up above, hopefully surrounded by blue skies and happy un-poxed thoughts while she takes care of the monkeys that were apparently more important than Guybrush. Why couldn't she have just thrown LeChuck overboard long before reaching Spinner Cay and joined him on the Screaming Narwhal? Why didn't she see that finding the sponge was much more important than chumming it with a new and improved version of his arch nemesis? Why did they always seem to be on separate ends of the earth whenever Guybrush actually needed her?

He can't help but wonder if there's some cosmic reasoning behind all of this, why Elaine and him are never together for long before some drama or some bad guys or some fight about sextants gets in the way. The Voodoo Lady always tells him how the fates are all-knowing, all-powerful, and carry a purpose that isn't always visible but is there nonetheless. So what's the purpose of always having him and Elaine working apart instead of together ninety-seven percent of the time?

"Found you some grubs."

Guybrush turns around just in time to have Morgan sweep an armful of wriggling bugs into his grip, leaving his already in-dire-need-of-a-wash clothes that much slimier.

"Ew," Guybrush moans. It's like holding a baby, if that baby were disgusting and slippery and had twenty different wiggling limbs. "Why didn't you just give these to De Cava?"

"The guy freaks me out," Morgan tells him. "If I catch him when he's in a mood, I'll be back in one of those homemade cages before I can even prepare myself."

"Well, then just holler and I'll help get you out."

"Thanks, but I'm not the type of girl who likes relying on others to get her out of tight spots."

"To be fair, I wouldn't call those cages right spots. They're pretty roomy." He stuffs the grubs into his pocket anyway. The more he gets to De Cava the better, mostly because finding one hundred thousand somehow seems like an easier solution than dealing with the Brotherhood. He turns to Morgan as he wipes his hands off on his pants. "So how's your head?"

"My head?"

"You took a barrel to the skull yesterday," he reminds her. "By all accounts, you shouldn't even remember your own name."

She exhales through her nose. "The tragedy of our situation is distracting me plenty," she says. "But I do have a headache."

"Understandable. Want me to have a look?"

She frowns. "Since when are you a pirate by day and physician by night?"

"Hey, we don't really know if it's day or night inside this manatee, now do we?" Guybrush points out. At her unwaveringly drawn brow, he clears his throat and continues. "I don't need credentials to look at a bump on your head. And I won't even behead you just because I can't fix it."

Her lips thin. "So you're still upset."

"About what?"

"That scratch I gave you back on the Narwhal."

"That scratch—you mean when you _chopped my hand off_ in cold blood?" Guybrush huffs. "Okay, fine, you know what? I'm fine. I'm no longer upset."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I _love_ walking around with a hook on my wrist and half of my fingers missing. I wasn't using them anyway. Who even needs a left thumb?"

"Hey!" Bugeye yells, jolting Guybrush out of the rest of the scorn he had geared up to unleash. He's glaring at them like they're disturbing the deep focus of his boxing practice and the rhythm of Noogie's drumming. "This part of the manatee is for keeping the peace. If you two rascals can't do that, take it upstairs."

"Great," Guybrush mutters under his breath. "Look, I need to work on getting that sour plum to like me," he says, jabbing his thumb in Bugeye's direction. "In the meantime, you could maybe think about getting rid of that chip on your shoulder."

Morgan lets out an angry little breath through her nose, crossing her arms. "I don't have a chip on my shoulder."

"Yeah, you do. And food is scarce around here, so maybe you want to consider using it for a snack instead of carrying it around like a moody teenager." He shrugs. "Just an idea."

"I didn’t exactly ask for your ideas."

"I know, but I offered them anyway. See how nice I am?"

Morgan doesn’t look at him. She keeps her eyes aimed pointedly away, entire face pinched into something hard and irritated. "You can walk away now."

\--

It hurts more than he expects when Morgan throws his picture away after the failed face-off and it ends up covered in manatee goop like yesterday's seahorse remains. 

He picks it up, because he knows she'll want it back. Or at least, he hopes, because when he looks at it, he notices just how old it is, how wrinkled the photo’s become, how the details are fading in certain spots, like her thumbs have been smoothing it out and tucking it away for years. It makes him think about just how long she's known of him, idolized him, learned about his life. What about him really made her like him? What did she hear that made him seem exciting, interesting, worth admiring?

He's spent a large chunk of his life trying to be what Morgan thinks—or at least, thought—he is. Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate. Handy with a sword, annihilator of his enemies, charming romancer of the ladies, and renowned for his lung capacity. Knowing that he just doesn't live up to the stories isn't exactly a walk in the park. More like a walk down a grueling path of self-criticism.

And Morgan’s opinion shouldn’t matter to him. He hardly knows Morgan. Why exactly does it sting so much when she turns her back on him and seems to lose all belief in his capabilities as a pirate, or, let’s be real, as a man? Is it because she’s the closest thing Guybrush has to a friend in this godforsaken beast?

He makes a mental note to change her mind about him. He’s not sure how, or why he even cares, but he doesn’t want to part ways having disappointed the one and only member of his fan club. Truth is, it feels nice having someone like Morgan, who is wickedly talented and sharp as a tack and can match his sword’s every turn, look up to him, feel inspired by him. Frankly, he’s starting to look up to her, what with how she approaches every situation with a headfirst—sometimes bloodthirsty—moxie that’s fueled by an apparently undeflatable balloon of confidence. She’s pretty amazing.

And, well. He supposes maybe that’s why it hurts so much.

\--

He watches her "reconnaissance mission" with Noogie from the other side of the manatee belly even though he tries not to. He does his best to tell himself that he's only spying to make sure it's working and that Morgan doesn't take it one step too far and tackle the poor guy to the ground thanks to some hungering pirate hunter instincts, and not for—any other reasons.

It's a bit strange, watching it happen, and he can't quite pin down what the feeling bubbling in his stomach is while he does. Is it pity for Noogie, who's very obviously buying into the illusion Guybrush tricked Morgan into creating for him? Or is it something else?

"You're bringing the mood of the whole manatee down, brah," Moose says out of nowhere, apparently watching him behind that curtain of hair. "Why'd you let your girl ask out Noogie?"

Guybrush looks away from where Morgan is checking Noogie for weapons and Noogie seems to be doing his best not to throw up into the bile pool out of sheer excitement. Well, there's certainly no better place to throw up, so there's that.

"What?" he says, turning to Moose's bar. "I don't—I think you've misunderstood. She's not my girl."

"You sure, brah?" Moose asks. "'Cause she seems super into you."

"That's a whole different story."

"Don't make life so complicated, brother," he tells him. "Just let whatever's natural happen."

Guybrush swallows, wondering just how good that advice actually is. If he were to follow everything his gut and nature tells him to do, he's pretty sure he'd be jailed and/or punched out on a daily basis. That, or he'd be LeChuck, who never seems to have any moral filter on his actions. It's easy to whittle life down to such an aphorism when you live inside a lost manatee, but Guybrush fully intends to get out of here, so he'll go ahead and push nature aside and ignore those weird, squelchy feelings inside his stomach that he refuses to identity when he sees Morgan hold hands with Noogie to "check his grip."

The feeling gets a little harder to ignore later when he goes to talk to Noogie, who then, with a flushed, happy glow on his face of a man very pleased that Guybrush does _so_ want to slap off with a throat grub, tells him all about their fantastic date and how Morgan was so into him and how this romance is sure to continue now that they've reached second base—yuck. Guybrush doesn't even want to hear the words "second base" come out of Noogie's mouth so he doesn't have to put images to the phrase, even if he is grossly misinformed as to what second base actually is.

By the time he puts an abrupt end to that conversation after he gets to the point—that is, Noogie's vote into the Brotherhood—he's pretty sure he knows what that feeling in the pit of his gut is. He just doesn't want to admit it's there, like a loud, embarrassing uncle crashing a party whilst drunk that no one wants to take responsibility for. It's there. But he's turning a blind eye to it.

\--

"How'd it go?" Guybrush asks as he and Morgan walk up to the manatee's mouth.

"Fine. Except I have some serious trouble believing that he's a dangerous assassin."

"Oh, he is. Totally dangerous. Practically lethal. Nice work, Mo."

She furrows her eyebrows. "You realize that no assassin likes being checked for weapons that much, right?" She rolls her eyes. "You played me."

"Okay, fine. But you realize that finding that cochlea is as important for you as it is for me?"

"How do you figure?"

"What, do you _want_ to be stuck in here forever?"

She doesn't answer, and for a moment it seems like maybe she does, and maybe she's actually enjoying herself here teaming up with Guybrush like they're part of some exclusive manatee pirate club, but then Guybrush notices that her eyes are drawn over his shoulder at something that seems to be distracting her. He turns around, following her gaze, and notices De Cava in his hut, watching them behind his layered eyewear. It's starting to get unnerving, how every time Guybrush turns around up here, that guy is watching him with suspicion drawing his brow together, and one wrong move, and Morgan'll be right and they'll be back in those cages answering more trick questions about specific details regarding their wedding.

"He probably doesn't believe that we're actually married," Morgan says, then sighs. "And I can't blame him."

"What do you mean?"

"Would _you_ believe us?"

"Maybe. I don't know. To be fair, I don't really go around questioning the validity of a couple's relationship ten minutes after meeting them. It’s not really normal."

"You realize that De Cava's not even close to normal, right?"

"Yeah. Okay. I get your point," Guybrush says. He checks over his shoulder again, wondering at what point they'll start looking more like co-conspirators instead of honeymooners. "What do you think we should do to convince him? Hold hands?"

"I have a better idea."

"Uh huh?"

Two of Morgan's fingers are slipping over his cheek a second later, tipping his face back around to her, and suddenly she's leaning in and putting her lips on his in what is definitely not a chaste kiss, which is the point as far as De Cava's eagle eyes are concerned, but it still surprises the socks off of Guybrush, who isn't expecting any of it, because _holy cow_ , Morgan’s mouth is totally, actually, on his, and they’re kissing. His hand finds Morgan's waist without meaning to, curling around the fabric of her vest while she shifts her head and aligns their lips even better than before and shortcircuiting Guybrush's brain a little bit.

She pulls back just a fraction, her lips brushing Guybrush's while she speaks. "Is he still looking?"

"Who?" Guybrush asks, a little bit disoriented. Oh. De Cava. Right. He looks away from where Morgan is close enough to be blurry, trying to focus on where De Cava is tucked away behind his bucket of grubs. He's still paying attention, but the judgmental crease between his eyes has gone away. "Uh. Yeah."

"Then try a little harder, would you?"

She kisses him again before he can ask any questions, and this time she seizes his hands and plants them straight onto her ass, going directly for the gold and not even giving him a chance to hide his truly humiliating yelp of surprise that gets muffled in her mouth. She bites down on his lower lip—really actually _bites_ , which Guybrush should've anticipated, really—and only draws back when he's been thoroughly bamboozled again, just like before, and his fingers feel like they’re burning from touching her behind for so long. He'd think that the second kiss wouldn't be so mind-boggling, but, well, he's been proven hideously wrong.

"I think that should do it," Morgan says.

"Who now?"

Morgan frowns. "Are you listening?" She takes a step back from him, no longer in the kind of close proximity that lets Guybrush think of fifteen different words for the shade of green in her eyes. "I'm talking about De Cava. I think that should convince him for now."

Guybrush tries—really tries—to coax some coherence into his brain, but it's a little mushy after that kiss and refusing to let him say logical things. He knows one for sure, she definitely didn't do this with Noogie.

"Er. Yes. I think you're right."

She nods and goes to walk away like this is all somehow a job done and conquered and ready to be brushed off, and Guybrush acts on a weird, spontaneous instinct and reaches for her arm. His lips are tingling. His bottom lip is _throbbing_ , actually, from that particularly zealous bite, but everything else is tingling like he’s just been electrocuted by something illegal in De Singe’s lab.

"Listen, about what just happened here."

"What is it?"

"That, uh. That kiss."

Morgan isn't looking directly at him. "Listen, it was all in the name of getting out of this damn manatee. I'm sure Elaine will understand."

It hits Guybrush a little like being backhanded with a sword that he hadn't even been thinking about Elaine's reaction—which, yeah, wouldn't exactly be pretty—but was rather occupied with the fact that their fake marriage had just become a little less fake and it hadn't exactly felt... wrong.

More like startlingly electric. And explosive. And bewildering.

"That's not really what I meant," he says.

"Then if this is you worrying about me, cut it out," she says, voice hardening. "I can handle playing house and I can handle a few contrived make out sessions."

She's got this all wrong, Guybrush thinks, but he's not even sure that explaining would fix anything. As a matter of fact, bringing it up was probably a bad idea too. If he's starting to feel—something. Well, better to squash that under his boot rather than give it the time of day to grow and consume and do harm.

"Uh, okay. We'll just leave it at that, then."

She sighs. "Sounds good to me."

He lets her walk away this time, doing his best not to watch her while she struts off to the ship.

He watches anyway.

\--

"You know, I saw on your to-do list that you got yourself a ship," Guybrush says. "Any chance that has something to do with your lifelong desire to secretly be a pirate?"

Morgan snorts. "No. I just need to actually _get_ to the people I'm commisioned to kill, you know."

"Or de-hand."

"Sure," she agrees, not sounding too broken up about the whole thing, even as Guybrush pointedly waves his hook in her face. "Whatever I get paid to do, I do."

"As it's been proven to me," Guybrush says, but strangely enough, it doesn't make him feel at edge around Morgan. He knows that technically she's here to drag him by his ear back to De Singe to be meticulously chipped away at for the purpose of evil science, but he can't help but feeling that she's coming around. Maybe starting to enjoy Guybrush's presence as more than just her faraway idol, especially now that he's gone ahead and stripped away any heroic misconceptions she might've had about him. Maybe she's rethinking that whole mercenary thing now that she gets to compare it to a pirate's life of intrigue and adventure and—well, in-depth sea cow exploration and other such unexpected detours.

"Besides, I don't think I could now go from pirate hunter to pirate," Morgan says, and it sounds like the very, very edge of her voice is walking around a hole of wistfulness.

"'Course you can. Never too late to change your career path." He bumps his shoulder into hers. "And you'd make a good pirate."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I can tell." He grins. "You've already got a great pirate face. It'd be a shame to waste it." He turns away, sculpting his face into a carefully crafted, nasty expression, adding in the wide-eyed look of horror he learned from De Cava this morning. He whips around toward her again. "Arrrrr!"

She strikes back in an instant. "Arrr!"

Guybrush breaks out of his bugged-out geezer to smile, pointing at her impressively mean sneer. "See? That's some authentic pirate instincts you got there."

She laughs at that, and it makes Guybrush realize he hasn't heard her laugh yet, at least not without a slightly malicious edge to it, and the sound is nice, heartier than he would imagined. It makes something unpleasant wind up his gut, and it takes him a moment to realize that the sensation is guilt. He thinks of Elaine, god knows how many miles above and away, and how she'd react if she saw the two of them sitting all intimate-like on a manatee growth together, laughing, joking, bonding.

And if Elaine would explode on Guybrush, poxed or not, he couldn't exactly blame her. The disturbing fact of the matter is, he wouldn't feel guilty if there wasn't anything to feel guilty about. He's been turning a shoulder to all of this until now, but there _is_ something happening here, something that started long before they were eaten whole by this carousel of a spinning manatee.

His mind wanders over to the Voodoo Lady, and his brain proceeds to fill in what he's fairly certain she would say to him now. Something slightly enigmatic about the tides of destiny and the winds of fate and how there's a reason he and Morgan are stuck down here together, without anyone who might stop what's occurring between them, whether it be Elaine or De Singe or LeChuck or the ghost of Morgan's beloved pet Gomez.

He looks at her, eyes cast aside but mouth still turned up in a smile, and wonders if she's feeling the same things he is.

Should he ask? Does he even want to actually know?

"Whaddya say?" he asks, the words blurting out of his mouth without his better judgment to stop him. Maybe this infernal curse has taken control of his tongue now too. "If we ever get outta here, you wanna sail the world and plunder the seas with me?"

"Hmm," she says. Guybrush waits for her to mention Elaine again, but she doesn't this time. "I'll think about it."

"It would require you to not turn me over to Doctor De Crazypants, though."

"Where am I supposed to get my salary?"

He nudges her shoulder again. "Hey, treasure hunting is a pretty lucrative business. And as a pirate, I come across a lot of treasure maps," he tells her, but purposefully leaves out all the bits that come between finding the map and then actually finding the treasure, like being buried alive or dealing with bottomless mugs or worrying about LeChuck murdering him on the way. Whatever, those are the inconsequential parts. "Anyhow, where is your ship right now?"

"I left it outside the Jerkbait Islands," Morgan says.

"So when we get out of here, we should go find it. Take her out for a spin," Guybrush says. "Nothing like sailing a new ship during sunset."

" _If_ we get out of here," Morgan corrects.

"Come on, of course we are. And then I could teach you insult sword fighting!"

She rolls her eyes. "No one's doing that anymore."

"I refuse to believe that," Guybrush says. "Who told you that anyway? Dante Dragotta?"

"How do you know about him, exactly?"

"Saw his name on your blade. He's your mighty mentor, right?"

"Something like that," Morgan says, and something remarkably nostalgic sweeps over her face before it flickers away again, reminding him that despite the cold exterior, she does have real emotions. They only show up in flickers, though, so Guybrush has to pay close attention to notice. He wonders how many people have. "He was the best swordsman in the entire Caribbean. Universe, maybe. He taught me everything I know."

"Except for insult swordfighting."

She rolls her eyes again.

"Come on! Every pira—everyone braving the oceans needs to know how to do it. Here. I'll start with an easy one." He readjusts his shoulders, straightening his back out. "You're as repulsive as a monkey in a negligee."

"I look that much like your fiancé?"

She fires it back at him without so much as a moment of hesitation, so swiftly that Guybrush is caught between shocked and impressed, which seems to be the usual blend of emotions that Morgan brings out in him. That, or ones he refuses to identify for the sake of not opening up any cans of worms.

"How'd you do that?" he asks.

"I've already learned more from you than you know," she says. "Stuff like that happens when you spend your life looking up to someone. You pick up on things."

"Oh. About that," he says. "How is it you know so much about me anyway?"

She lifts her shoulders in a quick shrug. "I don't know. I just... heard about you one day and you sounded cool." She gives him a look. "Cooler than you actually are in person, mind you."

Who's spreading these flattering, over-exaggerated, worshipful gossip about him anyway? Most of the people Guybrush meets spare him a disbelieving glance when he tries to introduce himself as a Mighty Pirate—which is still better, admittedly, then the parental pat on the back and words of encouragement to keep trying—but apparently there are people out there who have actually heard of him, and not just that, but are telling fanciful tales of his heroism?

"What did you hear? And seriously, who told you?"

"That you were this big, amazing pirate who defeated LeChuck."

He preens, sticking out his chest. "Well, that part's true."

"And that you were smart and handsome and ruthless and were living this amazing, seafaring, adventurous life with your gorgeous wife and that you were basically to thank that LeChuck wasn't in the process of slaughtering the entire Caribbean," she adds. She shrugs, a flash of a pink blush on her cheeks. "Some of it was obviously exaggerated."

"I wouldn't say so. Sounds totally on the nose to me."

"Really? Because the mighty Guybrush I heard of would've skinned those three sacks of bile down in the stomach for not doing what he wanted, and he certainly never would've run around doing the dirty work of a loon of an explorer by collecting grubs for him."

"So what you're saying is that I'm a big, fat disappointment."

"Not exactly," she admits. "You're just... different from all the stories."

"So wait a minute. If you believed all them and liked me so much because of what you heard," Guybrush says, "then why'd you agree to a job where you'd have to bounty hunt me?"

He knows what she's going to say: _for the money, Guybrush_ , accompanied by a snort and a look implying a lack in his intelligence, but then she surprises him by letting out a loud, annoyed exhale and answering, "Isn't it obvious? Because I wanted to meet you."

"Oh. Really? And all that enthusiasm translated into sticking a sharp sword in my face?" He digs his elbow into her side. "The real me was that disappointing, huh?"

Shockingly enough, she shakes her head. "Nah. I mean, I was definitely surprised. But... your version of a Mighty Pirate is kind of cool too."

"Ah! So you admit it!" he says, beaming. "Then maybe you'll reconsider joining me on a ship once we get shooed up this manatee's blowhole."

He's not sure why he's pushing this, but there's some innate, instinctual part of himself that believes that Morgan belongs on the sea out there with him.

Wait, what now? Scratch that last bit. Not with him. No way. Even if he would have lots he’d love to teach her and they'd make an epic, fearsome pirate duo who could probably find treasure all over the seven seas. And even if she would have lots to teach him too and they'd end up as an unstoppable booty-hunting team that never loses a single sword fight or watches a single doubloon float away. 

He realizes then that she's looking at him, expression not quite as hard-hearted as usual and eyes almost bordering on _soft_ , something warm touching her features, possibly flattery. It fills Guybrush with a heat that can't be good news, the kind of heat that rises when a conversation sits in a meaningful silence and two people lock eyes for too long, when everything but mood music is there to accompany the charged atmosphere. He supposes it's his own fault, what with all the proposing she become his crewmember and join him for adventures by the seaside for two, his brain only noticing now just how romantic that sounds.

Is he leaning in? Is she leaning in? Is that space between them getting smaller or is Guybrush slowly hallucinating from all of these manatee belly fumes?

One of Winslow's supremely loud coughing fits claps its proverbial hands in the middle of their—their—whatever that just was, effectively snapping the mood stretched out like a shared piece of spaghetti between them. Guybrush jerks back to an appropriate distance and clears his throat, Winslow's hacking causing the entire ship to quiver as Guybrush tries to stand up and find his footing. He spares Morgan a glance, who's no longer looking at him but seems to be a little frustratingly disheartened, the curve of her back low and discouraged.

"I'm, er. I'm gonna go check on Winslow," Guybrush says, scratching the back of head with his hook. He feels a little too much like his limbs have turned to unstable jelly to spend any more meaningful moments sitting here wither. “Make sure he's still in one piece and hasn't dissolved into a pile of gooey green pox."

"Whatever," Morgan says, and when Guybrush comes back out of the quarters five minutes later after being yelled at by a poxed Winslow, Morgan's gone.

\--

The Feeling from earlier resurfaces again, ridiculously enough, when Guybrush pulls Murray out of his pocket to show off to Morgan and he promptly proceeds to hit on her. He stuffs him back into his jacket, a little more roughly than probably necessary and also a little angrier than probably necessary, and leaves before it hits him just how silly it is that he just got jealous over a skull. A ludicrous, evil-hearted, skeletal skull. Without so much as a trace of a body to accessorize with.

It turns the situation a little more dire, makes it harder to actually hide the noisy, drunk uncle he was trying to disassociate himself with and pretend isn’t in the room. If he's getting jealous over a skeleton flirting with someone who is not his girlfriend, there's a problem.

He's always been a jealous person, but he's never experienced his jealousy being targeted at anyone other than Elaine. It was always _hey, LeChuck better keep his hands off Elaine_ or—no, it was pretty much always LeChuck-related. The point is, that's something he's used to, not so much when someone else is involved. It feels—strange. And probably something worth piling more guilt onto his conscience for. He has no right to feel jealous because a crude demonic skull wants to sweet talk Morgan. He doesn't even have the right to feel jealous over the miraculous and ludicrous idea of Morgan going out with Noogie again if she wanted to. He can’t be jealous or offended over anything Morgan does. At all.

Oh, if Elaine could peer into his brain right now and see what he's thinking. She wouldn't be happy, with or without the pox to ease all that unbridled rage along.

"You keep some strange things in your pockets," Murray pipes up unexpectedly from within his jacket, effectively putting a stop to Guybrush's line of thinking then and there.

\--

They have some food on deck of the Screaming Narwhal, which is a miracle they keep gratefully quiet about so as to not share their snacks with De Cava, who Guybrush is pretty sure has resorted to eating the leftover parts of the throat grubs as sustenance.

Guybrush finds cheese, bread, and even some barrels of liquor in the ship's hold, the very latter he's saving for special occasions just in case they really are stuck in this sea creature for eternity and he wants a pick-me-up on his birthday. He's not sure, but he'll bet his tighty-whiteys that a shot of rum could really make Christmas inside a manatee a little bit brighter.

He and Morgan chow down in the mornings before they head down to the belly, usually to a symphonic backing track of Winslow's dry hacking.

"I think I'm making real headway on Bugeye," Guybrush tells her around a mouthful of an old biscuit. A little stale, but at least it's maggot-less. "That hatred in his eyes is fading by the day."

"Great. By this rate we'll be out of here in time for our pension plans to kick in," Morgan says. "Why won't you just give me back my weapon privileges so I can make them give us the cochlea already? You won't believe how motivating the pointy end of a sword can be."

"Trust me. I know."

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't know if you're aware, but there are other ways of motivating people to do things outside of swordfights. And unsolicited amputations."

"Yeah. _Talking_. And that's been turning out so well for you so far, hasn't it?"

"Hey, it's worked on you," Guybrush points out. "We started out this wild jouney as adversaries, and now we're jolly friends."

"Jolly friends?" she repeats, the doubt rife in her voice.

"Yeah." He stuffs the last of the cheese in his mouth—unfortunately more muenster, but he'd rather eat like the rats than not eat at all—and swallows it down. "Come on. You haven't tried to kill me in days. And we're working together as a pretend married couple to get out of this mess. That sounds pretty friendly to me."

She seems oddly embarrassed by the declaration. "I've never been very big on friends."

He's not too surprised by the admission. He can't really imagine a ruthless pirate hunter having a book club or a BFF or a clique of dependable buds always hanging around, and to be fair, the life of a pirate isn't exactly chock full of pals either. Now and again he inadvertently saves someone's life or shares a few enjoyable adventures with someone, but those people sort of get balanced out with all of the others who he either accidentally kills or annoys or bothers so much they decide to seek revenge on him. Oh, the duality of the rocky life of a Mighty Pirate.

So yeah. Guybrush could probably stand to have more friends too.

"Well, it's never too late to start learning how to play with others," Guybrush says. "Whaddya say? Friends?"

He sticks his hand out, glad that if nothing else, his right hand is the one that was spared in this entire mess so he can still experience the simple joys of writing things down, swordfighting, and hand-shaking, all things his left hand wouldn't be superb at. Morgan looks down at his preferred palm for a long moment, like he's somehow asking her to sign away her soul here, before returning the gesture and shaking his hand.

"Fine. Friends. But only for now."

They look at each other, as if sealing the promise through a moment of solemn eye contact. She looks a lot younger when she isn't snarling or grimacing or promising to annihilate Guybrush with her sword, and Guybrush hadn't really realized before just how nice her eyes are. They're a very soft green, the kind that reminds him of pulling his boat up to a harbor during summer and stepping on wet grass, the color as soft as the hand currently wrapped around his own.

"Friends," Guybrush says. "And you realize that means no trying to assassinate me, right? Can you try to control yourself?"

A huff of laughter leaves Morgan's mouth. "I'll do my best."

\--

"Your wife, you realize she wears no ring?" De Cava asks him out of the blue when Guybrush delivers a handful of wriggling grubs to him later that day.

"Yeah. That." He rolls his lips into his mouth. "She lost it."

"Just like you lost yours?" De Cava presses.

"Ah, well, mine is more of a logistical problem than anything else," Guybrush says, feebly lifting his hook as evidence. "She's just, er. Clumsy."

"It's bad luck to lose your wedding ring," De Cava says, very seriously. Guybrush could probably take him _more_ seriously if he wasn't always wearing that ridiculous contraption of a monocle on his head. And also if his mood swings would be slightly less unpredictable. "It means the marriage is doomed. Even if you find it again—the die of bad luck has already been cast."

Guybrush doesn't know how De Cava somehow manages to make everything sound so dramatic, but aside from all the theatrics and the endlessly rolling Rs, De Cava's words are giving him a case of the shivers. If it's bad luck to lose the ring, what does it mean to lose the entire hand? Or even worse, what does it mean when someone willingly gives their ring away? Guybrush reaches for Elaine's ring in his pocket, the sturdy stone cool against his palm. He can only guess what kind of message an Elaine sans wedding ring is sending to LeChuck.

"When I was stranded on the Isle of Melange many years ago, I was able to fashion a set of cufflinks out of a rock, a coconut, and my own teeth," De Cava says, cutting into Guybrush's train of thought.

"Ew."

"It only took me twenty-three months," he says.

"Are you suggesting I make Morgan a new ring with manatee intestines as materials?"

"Of course not!" De Cava shouts. "But my ship—it should still be somewhere in the bowels of the beast. It should have chests upon chests of priceless Spanish treasure, including fine wedding rings." He sets down a grub husk he's in the process of hulling. "Go look. I'll relieve you of grub duty for the time being."

"Gee, thanks."

De Cava shoos him away, and Guybrush, despite his better judgment but slightly egged on thanks to his boredom of trying to convince the wordless Santino to provide his vote, does as he's instructed and goes to check on the oodles of treasure. He already knows where it is—it's pretty hard to miss when there's an entire pile of gold just sitting in a manatee' stomach—but he hasn't actually bothered to look through it yet.

To his great surprise, Bugeye doesn't seem to mind that Guybrush is essentially looting their booty as he, five minutes later, goes rifling through the heap, which might have to do with the fact that materialism sort of goes out the window once you're stuck inside a manatee. He finds a few interesting things, like half a map to a lost Caribbean underwater city, a few solid doubloons, and even a sextant that Guybrush had always assumed was the stuff of legend. And then, without even meaning to, he finds a ring that looks like it might even fit Morgan.

He takes it. For De Cava's sake, of course.

"Hey, Mo," he says when he finds her standing by Moose's ichor bar. "I got something for you that you're either gonna love or hate."

Her eyes narrow. "What is it?"

Guybrush hesitates, losing his nerve a tad. "You like jewelry?"

"Why?"

He shows her the ring before he totally chickens out and has to work on joining both the Brotherhood _and_ the Wimpy, Socially-Awkward Pirates Club, holding it out between his thumb and forefinger.

"'Cause De Cava's been pointing out that you don't wear a wedding ring and I happened to find one over there, so." This was a bad idea. Abort, abort. "But I see now that you're more of a blade sharpener kind of woman instead of a diamond-monger, so I'll just—"

"No." She grabs the ring before he can fling it over his shoulder where it can be swallowed up and forgotten in the bile pool. "I like it."

"Should I get down on one knee?" he jokes.

"I think it'll be better for both our dignities if you don't," Morgan says. She puts the ring on her finger, and a funny little prickle pokes Guybrush in the stomach at the sight, at a woman who is not his wife putting on a distinctly martial ring that he's just given her to perpetrate the ruse that they're wed. He tries to shake that slightly unnerving feeling off, finding no success.

"Does it fit?"

"Yeah," she says. She holds her hand up for a moment, examining it. Something about the way she does so strikes a chord in him, and it takes him a bit to realize he's flashing back to when he first gave Elaine a ring, and how horrendously that snowballed soon thereafter. In hindsight, that entire experience feels like some kind of giant blinking neon sign that something was wrong between them. Turning your fiancé into solid gold right before she’s prepared to punch your lights out feels a little heavy on the nose of destiny trying to lend him a hand when he looks back on it now, and it's the kind of realization that turns him unsettlingly cold as he compares it to offering Morgan a ring now.

And why, why exactly did he feel the need to do that? Why would listening to De Cava ever be a smart choice to make? What is he doing? Seriously, _what_ is he doing? Is the humidity driving him to insanity?

"Uh, so, with any hope, you won't have to wear it that much longer," he blurts out, trying to backpedal, trying to fix this hole of bad ideas he's somehow wormed himself into. "And we'll get out of here and I'll get back to Elaine."

He says it to remind himself more than Morgan, but she seems equally if not more reminded, her lip curling. Guybrush feels bad pretty much instantly afterward. He hasn't exactly been the most sensitive with her in terms of mentioning Elaine, but now that he's paying more attention, it's clear that it bothers her when he does. He's not sure why, but it does.

Unless all this hero worship over him is really something else. Something that's a little more personal and a little less celebrity daydreaming than he first thought.

"Hey, sorry about that," he says, not sure why he's apologizing but feeling innately like he ought to.

She doesn't seem to agree, though. "Don't," she says, voice hard. "I'm going to bed. Don't come get me until we get out of this godforsaken beast."

She stomps off and up the manatee without another look over her shoulder, leaving Guybrush feeling frustratingly guilt-ridden and confused and unsure of exactly how to handle the situation, if anything he says at this point will inevitably just make it worse.

"You're an idiot."

Guybrush whips around, and there's Bugeye, arms crossed and eyes dark as he shakes his head like some kind of disapproving chaperone. 

"Hey, how long have you been creeping around eavesdropping on my private conversations?"

"You want privacy, go to the intestines," Bugeye says, like that's even _remotely_ an option Guybrush is going to consider. "This is the Brotherhood's space."

"Come on! I'm not even in your stupid club! Give me a break."

"You realize that that's most likely the first and last woman to ever be interested in you?" Bugeye says, steamrolling over Guybrush completely.

"Hey! For your information, I have a wife."

"Yeah. And you pissed her clear off."

"She's not my wife, she's my—" Guybrush stops himself, not quite sure what to say. Friend? Hired assassin? Make-believe newlywed? "It doesn't matter. She's mad and she isn't exactly the type to talk out her feelings. What exactly do you expect me to do?"

"Me? I don't expect anything," Bugeye says.

"Unnecessarily scathing, as always."

"But it'd be in your best interest to go after her."

"Go ahead," Guybrush says, because he's pretty sure this guy is dying to get pedantic all over him. "Enlighten me as to why."

Bugeye smirks. "Do you really think having someone like her on your bad side is a good idea?"

_She cut off my hand and keeps off-handedly threatening to drag me back to the deranged loon who wants to dissect me alive_ , Guybrush thinks but doesn't say, feeling a little crabby. _The sides don't get any badder than this_.

Also, he hates the idea of Bugeye being right about anything. There's just something cosmically wrong about that.

"Here's a free tip, doll face," Bugeye says, slapping him a little harder than necessary on the shoulder. "Women either hate you or love you. There's just no in between."

"That's oddly sexist and irrelevant."

Bugeye proceeds to give him the stink eye—a name that would really suit him better, Guybrush thinks, than Bugeye—before shrugging, clearly losing interest in Guybrush's problems, and turning to walk away. "Just helping you out."

Okay, so Bugeye may have been right about some things, but he's wrong about that part. Morgan and him have been treading a very fine line between reluctant allies and snarky friends ever since they ended up swallowed by a manatee together, and even when she was trying to decapitate him, Guybrush never exactly hated her. How could he when he was so busy being impressed by her swordmanship and trying to swat that seagull away from his poxed hand?

And now, things have changed quickly in an extremely short amount of time. They went from pressing swords into each other's necks to posing as a happily married couple, and of course that kind of emotional whiplash is bound to have repercussions. The more Guybrush gets to know about her, gets to spend time with her, gets to learn about her history, the less animosity is between them. Not that Guybrush is even sure there ever was animosity from Morgan's side, not when he's convinced that her tough, mercenary shell is more of a mask than anything else. There's something soft in there, something gentle, something that comes out when she lets it.

He likes her. There's no denying that, even if it does pull the functionality of his survival instinct into question.

And if he's stuck in this manatee forever with no one but a mentally lopsided explorer and a belligerent trio of frat boys and _her_ , and if he never sees Elaine again, and if he'll be tasked with finding throat grubs for the rest of his life, does he really want to not do anything about it? Does he really want to pretend he isn't falling for her?

He watches Bugeye head back over to his punching bag, glances at where Noogie is going at it with the percussive beats, looks over to where Moose is chugging manatee fluids. They're all content, in their own little twisted ways. Maybe Elaine's even happy as well, up above over the sea level and miles out of reach. Why shouldn't Guybrush get to be happy too?

He can't think of a good reason.

\--

He finds Morgan in her room in the ship quarters, sitting on the bed, fiddling aimlessly with a rolled up map and gripping it like it's a sword, most likely out of withdrawal for missing her own, which is still shucked in Guybrush's belt. He looks briefly down at it, at the engraved Dante Dragotta shimmering on the side. It reminds him that there's still so much he doesn't know about Morgan. What her life's been like. If she has any family. How she even came to be a mercenary with one hell of an ability to handle a sword. Who she really is.

"What are you doing here?" Morgan asks sharply, snapping Guybrush back to reality.

"Just wanted to let you know the cochlea's been found and manatee is back on course."

"Seriously?"

"No," Guybrush admits. "Actually, I just wanted to say sorry."

"For what?"

"I kind of got the feeling that I'm pissing you off because I keep bringing Elaine up," he says, wondering exactly how lightly he has to tread here before he gets an angry pirate hunter strip-searching him for her sword. "And I just wanted to—"

"Save it, seriously," Morgan says. Her fingers are white around the map she's holding. "I don't need to hear about how special your wife is and how you can't wait to see her again and how I have to get over myself already."

"That's... not really what I was gonna say."

The corner of her eyebrow twitches. "What were you gonna say?"

He looks at her, at her thin wrists and her worry-bitten lip and her angry eyes that aren't, for whatever reason, glaring the wrath of Poseidon into him, but instead avoiding his glance. He feels that same tingle in his gut that he's been feeling this entire time and really can't ignore anymore. Won't ignore. They're inside a goddamn manatee and if it's up to De Cava and his tiny bucket of grubs—or destiny—they might never get out, so what's the point of pretending?

He lets his breath out.

"That I'm pretty sure the reason I keep bringing up Elaine is because I'm trying really hard to remind myself of her because when I'm around you, I... get distracted."

Morgan's entire body seems to freeze in place.

"What?" she says.

"I like you and I think you're awesome, even if you do keep trying to trade me in for pieces of eight." He sucks his breath back in, suddenly feeling a little light-headed now that he's admitted that. He's going to go ahead and blame his wooziness on the never-ending spinning of the manatee. "And when you kissed me to convince De Cava, I... my mind wasn't anywhere near Elaine. At all."

She's actually looking at him by now, eyes gleaming with something that isn't her usual hard-nosed murderess shine. Guybrush swallows.

"You like me," she repeats.

"Yeah."

"Like me, like me?"

"Okay, yeah, I do," Guybrush says. His heart is going to break out of his chest any moment now if he doesn't control its nervous, overzealous beating. "And I'm pretty sure you like me too."

"Well, I've been making it _obvious_."

"Right. You mean after you cut off my hand or before you threw your autographed portrait of me away like spoiled leftovers?"

She's standing before Guybrush can blink, wrapping a hand around the lapel of his jacket. "Me Frenching you in front of De Cava could've given you a clue."

"I thought that was just for his benefit."

"And what about the kiss after that?"

"What kiss after that?"

She grins. "This one."

Her lips are on his before he can see it coming, her free hand curling around the back of his neck to pull him closer, and something about this kiss feels even nicer than the one they shared while De Cava was watching, which either has something to do with the fact that a slighty creepy and obsessive explorer was peeping on them that time or because this one feels infinitely realer, more authentic, less for show and instead just for the two of them. Guybrush cups her cheek with one hand and reaches around her wait with his hook, making an agreeable, pleased noise against her mouth as her tongue sweeps over his lower lip, asking for entrance.

Winslow's hacking resurfaces and shakes the ship again like it's rumbling through rough waters, but Guybrush vows not to let it distract him this time, keeping her close.

"Ignore him," he murmurs on her mouth, brushing his thumb under her eye, reveling in just how soft her skin is under his fingers. "He’s fine."

"Got it," she says, tugging his bottom lip into her mouth and completely distracting him from his first mate possibly dying one wall away. It’s fine. He’ll survive.

She bites down on his lip, just like she did before, and Guybrush should’ve expected that she’d like it a little rough, a little tumble. He pulls back from the kiss to touch his mouth just to cheekily check for blood.

"Careful with the precious merchandise here," he says, chuckling.

"Oh, keep up, Guybrush," she tells him, something a little sexy, a little evil, and a little mischevious in her eyes that is turning Guybrush on more than he’d like to admit, and she leans in to nip along the curve of his chin around his facial hair. "Besides." Her hand briefly grazes over her groin and where his pants are starting to feel extremely tight. "I think you like it."

"Ha—you caught me."

It's only when her lips are on his neck, sucking a line of punishingly dark marks along the line of his jaw, when he feels her hands around his waist, pulling her sword out of his belt. He swallows, and she must feel his Adam's apple bob under her mouth's ministrations, because she pulls back to survey him.

"Oh boy. You're gonna kill me now, aren't you?"

"What are you talking about?"

He cocks his head to where Morgan's fingers are wrapped around the handle of her sword, and that's when he realizes that Morgan's really just pulling it free to drop it on the ground, hands moving swiftly back to undoing his belt a second later. Oh. _Oh_.

"I'm just undressing you, idiot," she says. "Can you handle that?"

"Uh, yes. Absolutely."

She drops his belt next, Guybrush helping speed the process along by shrugging off his jacket while she gets to work unbuttoning her own clothes, and before he knows it, her gloves are pulled off and her chest is exposed and holy cow, her cleavage is somehow even nicer when it isn't covered up by fabric—pointless, pointless fabric, really, why do they even need clothes anymore around each other? Guybrush doesn't need them. To prove as much, he rips off his shoes and pants like he's being graded on speed, very nearly tripping over the waistband as he tosses his bottoms aside. When he looks at her, she's trying not to laugh, fist furled over her mouth.

"Hey! Didn't a guy ever tell you it's like a punch to the jewels when you laugh while he's naked?"

"Just impressed by how quickly you could undress yourself," she says. "It's a skill I didn't realize you had."

"So that one never made the pirate gossip column?"

"Unfortunately not," she says, then grabs his forearms and tugs him closer again, going back to the marks she left apparently unfinished on his neck.

He does his best to stifle his yelp when her teeth suddenly make an appearance again, sinking down on the skin below his jugular. Her tongue glides over the burn of the bite a second later, but it's only a momentary soothing, her teeth back to nibbling at his jaw soon after.

"If I didn't know better," Guybrush says, already feeling a little low on oxygen. "I'd say you were trying to mark your territory."

She chuckles, the sound vibrating against his skin. "What makes you say that?"

"Well—ah—all the hickeys are giving me a clue."

Her thighs brush his, and it makes him realize that she's still wearing her pants while he’s practically in only his nude glory. He fumbles to push them off of her, his eager, fervent fingers suddenly unable to work something as simple as a button. He just can't seem to—why are buttons so hard anyway—oh, for the love of—

_Finally_. He tugs them off after that, sliding briefly down her body as he does so to give more of her torso the attention it deserves, pulling her pants off her feet before leaving a few teeth marks of his own, nibbling around curve of her hipbone and the expanse of skin on her stomach and stopping when he gets to her breasts, unable to resist sucking a nipple into his mouth. He feels her draw in a shaky breath, her stomach trembling with the inhale she takes, and her hands come around to cup the back of his head, touching the base of his ponytail.

She moans his name—at least it sounds like she does, the sound breathy and sensual and wonderful—and Guybrush drags his tongue around her hardened nipple a few more times before pulling away, catching a sight of her hooded eyes and parted lips and feeling just that much more blood rushing out of his brain to head southward.

"I'm as good as they say, huh?"

A puff of laughter escapes her, her breathing heavier than before. "You _are_ good, Guybrush Threepwood."

She yanks him closer until they're falling backwards onto the bed, Morgan spread out and naked and _all for him_ , somehow, like something out of a dream, beneath him on soft sheets. He reaches out and flicks his thumb over the nipple he neglected earlier, marveling over her form, her smooth complexion, her tiny waist, her strong thighs. Is he dreaming? Does he really get to do this?

"I feel like I ought to pinch myself," he admits, leaning in to kiss her again. He goes to touch her thigh with his left hand and realizes very quickly that there's a problem.

He looks down at his hook, suddenly remembering the importance of opposable thumbs and functional fingers during foreplay. Drat.

"What is it?"

"I, um." Guybrush scratches the back of his head, looking to hide the hook in the process even though it's hardly a secret by now that he's a little short in the hand department. And Morgan's even the one responsible for that, but—still. "I just haven't done this before with, er. Just one hand."

He flexes his good hand, as if to remind all involved that he still has that, if nothing else.

"Oh." Morgan's face pinches a bit, but it seems to be more of an internal conflict than disappointment aimed at Guybrush. Is that—is that real guilt on her face? There’s a first for everything. "Here." In a blink's worth of time, she worms her way on top and flips Guybrush onto his back, hands flat on his chest. "How about I make you feel good?"

"Is that—" Guybrush squints. "That isn't sarcasm, is it? Because if it is, you're really killing the mood here."

"No! For god's sake." She shimmies down Guybrush's body, every movement her tiny frame makes against his incredibly stimulating. She works on his underwear, shimmying it down his legs. "I'm trying to do something nice for you here. Especially after all the trouble I caused."

"Um. You don't have to if you don't actually want to."

"I do, okay?" Morgan says. "So can you just shut up now so I can blow you?"

"I—what? Seriously? Uh, yes. Yeah. Shutting up now."

It's a lie, though, because Guybrush can't exactly keep his mouth closed once Morgan's lips wrap around his cock. It's perfect, everything from the gentle suction that very quickly gains an aggressive edge to the feel of the wet heat of Morgan's mouth, her tongue, her teeth just barely scraping against sensitive skin. There's obvious inexperience there, but Guybrush doesn't care. If she would be as good at this as she is at swordfighting, this would be over so fast it would border on _embarrassing_.

It might _still_ be a little embarrassing, because it's been a while and Guybrush has been horrendously tightly wound ever since he got to work finding the Cutlass of Kaflu and even if she is a novice, Morgan's a fast learner with a tongue that's starting to get very eager and very brazen, and it's all Guybrush can do to keep his hips still and think about porcelain cups to stay on course here. One of Morgan's hands wraps around the base of his dick where her mouth isn't reaching, and okay, okay, Guybrush really has to pump the brakes a little bit.

"Hoooooly buckets, you are way too good at this," he says, propping himself up on his elbows to look down, which is hardly a good idea as far as reining in his self-control goes, because seeing Morgan between his legs with glistening lips and her fingers drawn around his cock is—well, distracting. "This party's going to reach a screeching halt if you keep going like that."

"Isn't that the whole point?" Morgan says.

"Well, yeah, but—there's honestly something else I'd like to be doing when I finish."

"Is that so?"

"If you're interested, that is," Guybrush adds. Morgan's hand is still moving at an excruciatingly slow pace on his cock and it's getting a little hard to think coherently through all her ministrations, which now that he thinks about it, Morgan is probably doing on purpose for her own amusement. "Come up here?"

She doesn't seem to want to quit what she's working on down below—perhaps she thinks that if she does, Guybrush will lift out of the blowjob fog and become level-headed enough to realize this is a bad idea. It most definitely is a bad idea, and there are people up above the sea level who would gouge his eyes out if they knew what he was doing right now (one particularly feisty plunder bunny comes to mind) but he's not interesting in stopping, or overthinking, or even doing anything right now aside from giving Morgan the attention she deserves. So he reaches out for her, touching the soft skin right under her jaw, and leans in to kiss her again, wrapping an arm around her waist to turn them both around again so he’s back on top. He’s achingly hard right now, and his erection pressing against her isn’t exactly helping matters, but he has an end goal here, a plan he wants to execute, so he pulls back and gives himself a moment to breathe, to admire her.

She looks unbelievably small underneath him like this, deceptively fragile when Guybrush knows she's hardly so, but without her sword tucked into her side or her tightly-set corset or her no-nonsense gloves, he's reminded of something that exists underneath all that pirate hunter bravado: a real girl, one with emotion and soft skin and a tiny waist and lips parted in a breathlessness that's all Guybrush's doing, and he can't help but be a little proud. He doesn't know where to touch first, where he _wants_ to get started, her body an undiscovered map so far that he can take his time unriddling, and settles for a hand curled around her waist as he ducks in and leaves a trail of kisses on her neck. She shudders underneath him and sucks in a quick breath, which Guybrush takes as both a green light and possibly even a symptom of nerves.

"Have you done this before?" he asks as he indulges in himself and nibbles a little under her ear.

"'Course I have," she says. "Believe it or not, I haven't spent all my time daydreaming about what it be like for the mighty Guybrush Threepwood to have his way with me."

"But still some of the time?"

"Don't flatter yourself too much," she says, but she sounds like she's smiling. "I've had my fair share of nights of passion."

"Ah. Gus, eh?"

He pulls back from her neck—now newly adorned with a love bite of his own that's gently reddened—to tap his hook on the tattoo on her arm. A hint of pink graces Morgan's cheeks and she looks pointedly away.

"Maybe. Not anymore."

"Yeah. The pro bono hit job you took on him gave me a clue," Guybrush says. "Why'd you guys break up?"

"I don't know. Probably spent too much time talking about you, I guess."

"Really?"

"No, you idiot. Because he was a two-faced, backstabbing pirate, that's why."

Guybrush grins. "Ah. You know, not all pirates are like that."

"Yeah. Some of them get you stuck in giant manatees."

"Hey, I thought you said you don't mind it that much!"

"I don't." Morgan's arms wrap around Guybrush's neck, pulling him flush to her bare chest. "What about you?"

Guybrush notes the naked leg hitched over his hip, the breasts pushed against his pecs, and the overwhelming heat tingling up his midsection right now. "I can easily say that I have zero complaints right now."

"Good. Me neither."

She emphasizes her words with a firm kiss pressed against Guybrush's mouth, her lips strikingly soft underneath his. It seems like another green light—actually, her entire body language is practically a giant neon blinking sign to keep going, so Guybrush doesn’t waste time pandering around.

He slips a hand between their bodies and stops right between Morgan's legs, thumb brushing over her clit. He can't help but revel in the tiny, unintentional noise that leaks out of her when he does, so he presses in a little harder, rubbing in circles with the pad of his finger. He can’t quite keep from thinking about—just for a second—if Morgan reacted this way with Gus, if she flushed and moaned at all the same moments, and it causes a fierce wave of jealousy to wash over him that pushes him to lean in closer and suck over sensitive spots already marked on her neck, deepening the color and the signature of his left behind.

Her back arches when he slides a finger inside her, his name leaving Morgan's mouth in a pitch that sounds almost too high to even belong to her. He wants to pull the same reaction out of her again, so he pushes in a second finger to join the first, slicking them up inside her as he tests the waters of her tightness, scissoring them apart, twisting them together, crooking his fingertips. She's wetter than he would've thought, muscles throbbing around his digits as her eyes flutter shut and her mouth falls open. It's kind of an intoxicating sight, especially when he's seen just how deadly she can be with (or without) a sword only to now have her be pliant and panting _because of him_ , no less, and if he had the time right now, he'd probably let it go to his head a little bit. Maybe later. Currently, he'd better focus.

"Come on," Morgan whines, digging her fingers into his arms. "I'm not made of sugar. Stop teasing and do it already."

"Your pillow talk could use some work, you know that?"

" _Guybrush_."

"All right, all right," Guybrush relents, but not before adding in one more finger first. He very nearly audibly gulps at just how hot she is around him, painting an extremely clear picture as to just how good she'll feel around his dick. "Forgive me for savoring the moment."

"If you don't get on with it," she warns him, "I'm getting on top."

"Wait a minute. Is that supposed to be a threat?"

She groans. Guybrush takes her exasperation as encouragement to halt his teasing, although he does so with great reluctance, because there's definitely a part of him that wants to take his time and do a little bit of everything with her, get acquainted with her body, take all that sharp wit out of her mouth and replace it with pleasure-filled whimpers of his name. Maybe that last one is a little bit of a fever dream, but still. He'd definitely like to try and explore her like a treasure map held by a booty-hungry pirate.

"You're ridiculous, you know that?" Morgan says suddenly.

Did he just say that bit about being booty-hungry out loud? Good lord, he really needs to work on his smoothness.

He’ll worry about the embarrassment of that later, and focuses for now on the task at hand, pulling his fingers back out and wiping them quickly on the sheets before psyching himself up for what's about to happen, because oh boy, he's pretty sure it's happening. Morgan cups his cheek, giving him a look that's much softer than what he expects, and he notices then that the hair on her forehead is slightly moist with sweat and that her chest is heaving, and when Guybrush gently encircles his hand around one of her wrists, he realizes just how fast her pulse is going. All fearsome pirate hunter bravery aside, she might even be nervous, if not just as nervous as him, which shouldn't really be comforting but somehow really _is_.

"Okay," Guybrush says, reaching down to adjust himself and line up with her entrance. "Tell me if it doesn't feel good. Or if I'm doing if all wrong for you. Or if you're so bored you'd rather be collecting throat grubs."

She giggles, the sound a little contagious, and wraps her arms around Guybrush's shoulders before hitching her legs up over his waist. "I don't think that'll be happening."

"Really? That might just be the nicest thing you've ever said to me, Mo."

She opens her mouth—most likely to shoot back at that—right as Guybrush decides to cut the talking short and concentrate on the fact that they're both naked and pressed against each over, thrusting into her faster than intended and ending up fully sheathed and a little speechless, the words robbed from his mouth at just how she feels around him, the soft _oh_ of surprise that leaves her throat an extra plus.

"I—ah. This okay?"

She wriggles underneath him, then clenches and unclenches experimentally around his dick like that's something he'll somehow be able to handle without reverting back into a quickdraw thirteen-year-old, and says, "Duh. I already told you once, I'm not made of sugar." She shimmies her hips, somehow getting him in even deeper. "Come on. Do your worst."

He's more concerned about doing his best, but he takes the challenge nonetheless, starting to move his hips to the rhythm he feels all around him, the swaying of the manatee, the lurching of the ocean waters. He starts out slow, with just firm, deliberate thrusts that he works to quicken, hand curling around Morgan's hip. The bed is creaking a little bit now, the wood a little too old for this harsh treatment, and it makes Guybrush think back to something Bugeye told him earlier— _don't rock the manatee_. Oh well, too bad, so sad, Bugeye will just have to deal with it.

"Go faster," Morgan tells him. Her lower lip is bitten red, urging Guybrush to lean in and suckle it into his mouth, so he does so, kissing her and swallowing one of her moans as he does as he's told and rolls his cock in and out of her a little more quickly. 

It’s almost overwhelming. The noises Morgan’s letting out, the way she’s swiveling her hips now and then around him, the feeling of being inside her—Guybrush can hardly _breathe_. His arms are shaking where they’re holding him up over her, and he drops to his forearms, ducking his face into Morgan’s neck and breathing in, rocking in and out and memorizing the sound of each and every hitch of her breath when he pushes in. This feels absolutely _amazing_ on his end, slick and hot and perfect, and he wants Morgan to feel the same, to be spinning in the same overwhelming arousal, so he moves his hands back over her waist, finding her clit with his thumb and rubbing it.

" _Guybrush_ ," Morgan moans, and Guybrush inadvertently lets out a desperate noise that slips out before he can realize he’s making it at the sound of her saying his name like that, hips stuttering in the middle of the rhythm he’s maintaining.

"So this—this is good, yes?" he asks.

"Yeah," she says, wrapping her other leg around the small of his back as well for good measure. "Yeah, it’s good."

Will this make the pirate newsletters too along with all the other stories of Guybrush Threepwood’s alleged greatness? Will people be talking about how good he is in bed for centuries to come? Probably not, but it’s still worth a passing chuckle. He grins, looking down at Morgan and wondering exactly how anything is allowed to feel this good, how he somehow still has the luck to get to do something like this. He doesn’t want to stop doing this, to give her up, to let her be anyone else’s but his own, and right now, in the heat of the moment and wrapped up in the rhythm they’ve created, staying together actually feels possible. Her being his feels possible.

"I’m close," Morgan whispers to him, hips pushing up into the pressure his thumb is offering on her clit. " _Guybrush_."

"Yeah, me too, Mo," he says. He digs his hook into the bed to try and stay in place, snapping his hips in harder than before, losing the tempo he was keeping up in favor of urgency, a need to come and watch her come too, see her lose control. "Lemme see."

Her mouth opens on a moan when she does come a moment later, legs tightening around him and fingers digging into his arms, nails leaving crescent marks in her wake. Her entire body shudders against his skin, eyes fluttering shut as she’s swept up in the force of her orgasm, the sight drying up Guybrush’s mouth and making him want to do this over and over with her, make her come, make her moan just like this again and again.

She's still wearing that ring, that wedding ring that somehow fits her perfectly, and the sight of it on her finger is pushing Guybrush closer to the edge. It just makes it so easy to imagine what they'd have together if this story was real, if this had really happened between them a long time ago, if they end up stuck inside this manatee forever, and the idea of her taking it off is horrible, more upsetting than it should be. Guybrush's hips drive forward one more time and that's it, he's coming, hands clenching around Morgan's hips, her name tumbling out of his mouth as he lets go.

It takes him a while to blink away the sex fog he's swimming in after his orgasm, only coming back to earth when his arms start hurting from holding himself up over Morgan. He opens his eyes, not even sure when he closed them, and takes in her appearance—the kiss-swollen lips, the disheveled hair, the blush on her cheeks—and feels something tug at his heart strings, nudge him in the gut.

"Woah," he breathes. "That was—Morgan, you— _woah_."

He lets himself collapse next to her, every ounce of him torn between satisfied exhaustion and buzzing post-coital energy, and tries to ease more oxygen back into his lungs now that he has the time to breathe.

"Yeah," Morgan says, sounding just as pleased as Guybrush. "I know."

"Hey, is that you _agreeing_ with me?"

"I think so," Morgan tells him. "Crazy, right?" She rolls onto her side, dragging her hand down his chest. "You wanna go again?"

"Do I—what?" He blinks. "Please tell you're not talking about swordfighting."

"Not this time, captain," she says, grinning, and slides on top of his hips. "En guarde."

"Touche—hey-o! Easy there!"

\--

Guybrush has no clue how many hours they pass totally, gloriously naked, but the dim light filtering in through the ship's windows and secluded atmosphere of the manatee definitely sets the mood for a long marathon of sex. Only thing missing is some grog, some candlelight, and some lace-frilled lingerie.

Guybrush shows off exactly how he learned that breath-holding trick, and Morgan shows off what else her hands are good at aside from handling a sword, and along the way, Guybrush sees sides of Morgan he hadn't known existed, and he's not just talking about the physical sense—and there was a lot of new sides to see there too. Laying there in bed with him, bathed in a post-sex sweat and smiling much more freely than before, she laughs and touches him and shares little tidbits about her past, tiny stories that somehow worm their way into conversation, like the fact that she doesn't like coconuts or that she misses her uncle like crazy or that she has a huge scar on her thigh from the first time she ever picked up a sword and wasn't expecting it to be so heavy. Guybrush traces it while she talks, feeling the hardened, white scar tissue left behind, and feels remarkably at peace for a man trapped in a manatee while poisoned with a concerning, fury-inducing pox. None of that seems to matter while they lay there.

"I don't know what it is," Guybrush marvels, propping himself up on his elbow. He’s tired, but he’s not really interested in going to sleep yet and risk breaking the warmth they have surrounding them right now, the ease. "But the Voodoo Lady actually dated that guy. And not just as some big, cosmic joke."

Morgan laughs. "Maybe they just... work. Doesn't mean it'll make sense."

"Not anymore, they don't," Guybrush tells her. He looks down and realizes there's a bite mark on his thigh. When did that even happen? "There's a reason the Voodoo Lady got the hell out of dodge and camped out in a cabin in the jungle. To avoid that whack-a-doodle." He shakes his head. "Can you even imagine the two of them together?"

"Don't really _wanna_ picture it."

"I saw this picture of them at Spinner Cay. He had this—this tent out on one of the islands. There was a picture of them there along with a ton of poems—and I mean a _ton_ of poems." He shakes his head, glad he didn’t waste a single moment looking through those. "Anyway, that picture. They looked a lot younger. And maybe a lot saner, in De Cava’s case?"

"Love makes people do weird things, you know," Morgan says.

"Yeah. Like buy an entire closet's worth of disturbing lingerie."

"I meant De Cava," she says. "Him going off to find Esponja Grande. Not giving up through all these years. I mean, he’s definitely lost a few marbles. But it’s sort of nice, what he’s doing for her." She sneaks a glance in Guybrush’s direction. "Wouldn’t you want someone to wait for you?"

He’s pretty sure she’s talking about Elaine, up above, gallivanting off with LeChuck, but Guybrush is thinking about her. If they get out of here, and things go to hell—as they usually do when Guybrush is involved—he hopes she’ll wait for him in the end. That she doesn’t give up and go find herself another Gus.

He reaches for her hand, lacing their fingers together. Her wedding ring is warm against his palm. "Would you?"

"Wait for you?" A sly little smile spreads over her face that sort of makes Guybrush want to forget sleep altogether and gear up for round—what number are they on by now? "After moves like that, I think so."

"Worth writing home about, eh?" His eyebrows do a suggestive dance on his forehead that makes Morgan snort. "You weren’t so bad either. Didn’t know you’d like it so rough, although really, I should’ve known."

"Maybe I just like being in charge."

"Yeah. It’s one of the things I like about you."

She raises a curious eyebrow. "And what are some of the other things?"

Her eyes, her snark, her tenacity, her resourceful use of rope. And a few other things he fell in love with along the way. "In need of a confidence booster?"

"No way. I just like hearing you talk about how much you like me," she says.

"Fair enough. How much time do you have?"

"Forever, if we end up in this manatee for the next few decades."

Right. Sometimes Guybrush actually _forgets_ that he’s in the middle of the ocean and not just at a slimy boarding house on a slightly unsavory island. That he’s essentially being held hostage by a big sea cow and might never actually find his way out.

And if he does, and everything goes according to plan, what does that change? What does it mean for Guybrush and Morgan? Saying he wants to be with her feels like nothing but all kinds of selfish when he’s taken and spoken for and has been in the pursuit of getting back to Elaine from the minute he met Morgan.

But… he does. He wishes there was a time and a place where that was possible. Outside of this manatee, that is. Reality doesn’t really seem to affect the manatee.

"So what now?" she asks him, voicing the very thoughts running rampant in his brain. There's a timidity in her voice that isn't usually there, but Guybrush understands. He has no clue what comes next. Guilt? More sex? Both?

"Uh. Is it bad if I say I don't know?" he says, hopelessly honest. "I mean. We might be stuck in this manatee for a long time. We probably will be."

There are other things he could tell her. _I like you a lot. I don't want to stop doing this with you. I don't know how to make any of this right_. He keeps them inside, not sure it'll help anything right now, because frankly, he thinks she could do better than him. She's gorgeous and strong and skilled and could match anyone wit for wit, blow by blow, and Guybrush is too much trouble. He's practically a magnet for it if the last few years are anything to go by, what with all the tar-and-feathering and voodoo mishaps and near death experiences in evil amusement parks. Morgan deserves something better than that. She deserves the make-believe fantasy he offered her out on the sea, the one he's not sure really even exists. Not in this world. Not in this lifetime.

He doesn't really want to accept any of that yet. He curls a hand into Morgan's hair and kisses her, feeling her soft lips part beneath his, knowing that as long as he keeps doing this, as long as they don't leave this bed, everything's good.

And that's totally realistic, right? Right.

Morgan lets out a tired exhale, probably having as much foresight into the situation as Guybrush right now and realizing as well just how futile it is to try and plan it out. She slips closer to him, hooking her leg over his and pillowing her cheek on his chest, her hair soft where it’s tickling his jaw. Guybrush wraps an arm around her, the warmth of her body soothing to all the stress of their unknown future warped up in his, and he lets her even breathing and the motion of the manatee lull him into a sleepy relaxation.

\--

Noogie hands him the cochlea, just _hands_ him the cochlea, when he finally passes the vote, so easily that Guybrush is still waiting for someone to snatch it out of his hands and blow a raspberry in his direction. After everything he's been through with these dunces, he fully expected to have to first wrestle and somersault his way to victory to get his hands on the cochlea, if not prove his worth through a variety of challenges including pastry baking, swordfighting, bartending, and rumba dancing.

Instead, once all the rigamorale of face-offing, setting up faux dates, and working with a demonic skull is done with, it's easy. And then he has a giant inner ear part in his hands and his freedom in sight and everything he wanted days ago right there at his feet.

He's not sure why he feels so hollow inside at the idea.

Okay, so maybe he does know why.

He looks over at Morgan, who hasn't noticed the successful election over from her spot by Moose's wet bar and the fact that Guybrush has secured himself the cochlea. She looks a little bored, a little annoyed—probably by the stench that just doesn't really dissipate down here—and she also looks like someone Guybrush is kind of in love with.

Well, that doesn't complicate anything. _At all_.

"I, uh. I got the cochlea," he says after heading over to her.

Her eyes widen for a moment, but only a moment. "Oh."

The hurt isn't written over her face, but Guybrush sees it anyway. He knows the implication this giant green thing represents: getting out of the manatee, which leads to getting to Esponja Grande, which leads to going back above sea level, which leads to... Elaine.

Fact of the matter is, Guybrush really had started to think that they'd never get out of here, that his pirate life might just be a manatee dweller life from here on forward, just him and Winslow and the Narwhal and manatee innards and Morgan. _Morgan_. And now he _is_ going to get out of this manatee and everything's going to go back normal and he's not even entirely sure how to move forward now that everything's changed and become a wrangled mess all thanks to a few long nights spent inside a sea creature.

Except for, well. He doesn't _have_ to change anything.

"You know," he starts. 

He doesn't have to put the cochlea back.

"If you wanted, I could just—"

"It's okay," Morgan says. There's a sad tilt to her eyes, but she reaches out to touch his elbow anyway, fingers firm. "You should put it where it belongs."

"But if I do—"

"I know," she interjects. "I know what'll happen if you do, and it's fine, okay? I always knew how this was going to go."

"Really? Because I didn't." Guybrush looks down at the hand wrapped around his arm. "I still don't."

Who knows what's going to happen once they get out of this thing? He had never intended to get eaten by a humongous sea creature, but that happened, and now here he is, and on that same path of thinking, he had never intended to turn LeChuck human, and he had never intended to wind up on Flotsam, and he had never intended to meet Morgan at all, but he did, and maybe all that was just meant to happen. Maybe it was in the cards for him.

Maybe Morgan's still in his cards in the future?

"Why don't we just see what happens?" Guybrush offers. "Roll with the waves one at a time?"

Maybe this isn’t actually the end.

"One at a time, huh?" Morgan's mouth curls into a smile. "We could do that."


End file.
